She considers his lost years - a poem, and an explanation

SHE CONSIDERS HIS LOST YEARS, AND SIEVES THEM THROUGH THE WORDS OF THE GREAT POETS

You were never exactly going to live a normal life, were you.
You will be the flaming out.
You will gather the greatness -

the pain
and the glory.

You have no filters.
You hold your heart open.
You don't run
don't privilege
let it
rain
down
on you and through you and your filling and your emptying
is the great original sigh, and we are filled and emptied in your presence.

i am amazed by you.
i am amazed you have survived this long,
in this world of tread and toil and trade.
i think you have been with the monks.
i think you have studied surrender,
the study of absence,
the study of exhalation,
and hurting and healing and helping and hearing
and hurting.

Honestly, i had my times of breathlessness.
There were times i wondered if i would hear you sing again,
and i almost didn't care. i could ask nothing more of you.
To wrench open the door of my heart
was an act of holy violence.

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This poem is more literary than it sounds. i had in mind stylistic ideas and even phrases from the great romantic/transcendentalist poets, such as Blake, Yeats and Hopkins. (i am especially fond of Hopkins.) i believe i can poach so freely because i liken the subject, singer Altiyan Childs, to them.

i also had in mind some very old ideas, because i think when we consider greatness we are often drawn to our oldest and most developed ideas. One idea is about breath (prana, ch'i) being the source of life. Another idea is about being emptied. This is called kenosis in the Greek, and 'fana in Sufism. When we experience Spirit, we are emptied of our ordinary selves and transported into greater realities. In early Hinduism sound was considered generative of all life and was used as liturgy to shock people out of their ordinary selves. Music and dance have always been used in this way. i use the word shock here advisedly, because we cannot experience kenosis and remain the same, and because the experience itself can be as confusing and disturbing and problematic as it can be glorious and exciting and joyful. It has been for me.